Nightmare On A Gown
by dutiesofcare
Summary: Ever since Trenzalore, Clara has had continuous nightmares about failing to save the Doctor's life, and when the Doctor finally finds out about her dreams, he is there to help her through them.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine.**

 **A/N: This is set sometime after the Doctor regenerated, in a universe in which Danny Pink wasn't around. I don't have any beta readers, so please forgive me of any casual grammar slips and let me know so i can fix them.**

 **This is the first chapter out of four. Enjoy xo.**

 _She was running._

 _She didn't know where to, she couldn't remember where from._

 _She just kept running._

 _Her heart raced inside of her chest, allowing her the energy and adrenaline to carry on. There was a voice inside her head yelling at her, pounding at her, like the beat of a drum. She couldn't get the beating to stop, so she just listened to it, followed its command._

 _It told her to get to the Doctor._

 _It told her to save the Doctor._

 _Her breathing was unsteady, her lungs felt like they would implode. She couldn't feel her body, her legs led her to somewhere she had no control over, but neither did she want to stop them. She knew she had to fulfill her purpose before it was too late._

 _And then, she saw him._

 _She couldn't tell which one of his faces he had on, she couldn't bother herself to find out either. There were too many for her to remember when they both were in a clock for_ his _life._

 _He was fighting some alien force she had never seen before and from the way it looked, things weren't quite good for him. She rushed her legs, trying to get to him, she knew she had to._

 _But she was too late._

 _He had been hit before he had his chance to start regenerating. They had got to him before she could save him._

 _She had failed to save his life. Again._

Clara woke up in a scare.

Her breathing was anxious, and her fingers held so tightly to the sheets beneath her they were turning white. Her heart pounded against her throat so quickly she felt it might escape her chest at any time. She felt despaired, scared to ever close her eyes again.

Her face was covered in sweat and her eyes couldn't focus on anything. Her head ached, she felt like it held more information, more memories than it could bare. Clara feared It would explode if she didn't start losing some memories anytime soon.

Her life had been like that for a long time now. Since the day she jumped into his time stream, she hadn't been able to get a proper night of sleep. The dreams were always there, and they weren't always good. She was tired all the time, even if she did her best to hide it.

However, more recently, they were getting worse. The Doctor was always there, and he always ended up dead, which led her to wake up in panic and she wouldn't be able to catch her breath for minutes. Then, she would spend the rest of the night tossing around in her bed, hoping the dawn would arrive soon enough, or at least sometime before her dark thoughts consumed her mind.

Clara looked around her room in the TARDIS. The ship had turned a slight light on after sensing she was up, to which she was thankful for. The darkness was the last place she longed to be right now. She laid her back in the soft mattress again, her head sinking down the pillow, but her eyes remained wild open. She knew she would be tormented by nightmares if she dared to close them again.

After what seemed an eternity, refusing to give in to the exhaustion, she decided to get up. Maybe the Doctor would be up already and ready to go on an adventure. She laughed to herself, who was she trying to fool, the Doctor most likely hadn't even gone to bed.

After wrapping herself with a white silk robe and slipping some slippers on, she walked up to the console room. For her surprise, he wasn't sitting in his fancy chair like he tended to be. She wondered if he had gone explore some planet without her, but from the look on one of the screens, they were still in the time vortex.

She decided to go explore the ship, in boredom. She got a habit of doing that when her insomnia got a point she couldn't control. Lucky for her, the TARDIS always readjusted the rooms in a different order, always giving her something new to entertain herself.

That night, though, the TARDIS wasn't in the mood to ease her boredom.

The first door Clara passed by was the Doctor's room. For a moment, she considered going in, but decided against it. She didn't want to be a bother. For the first nights after Trenzalore, the previous incarnation of the Doctor had stayed with her after all those countless sleepless nights, thus it wouldn't be fair to bury him again with her problems.

She carried on, walking through a few corridors before reaching his bedroom, _again_. She mentally cussed the TARDIS, knowing very well she had heard it. Clara tried to go back to the console room, but the time machine kept mazing around her, always leading her to the Doctor's room.

Carefully, Clara laid her ears against the door, trying to listen to any sounds that indicated he was up. There were none. Shyly, she knocked. "Doctor? Are you asleep?"

There still was no answer. She debated whether she should go in or not, but decided to go for it as she didn't want to be standing in the hall until the break of dawn. Slowly, she opened the door. "Doctor?"

The Doctor looked up from the Tolstoy book he was reading. "Clara? Is it time to get up yet?"

She shook her head, eyes looking at the so neat bedding that didn't look to be touched for the past ten years. "No, I… I couldn't sleep," she told him, too tired to lie.

The Doctor closed up the book, setting it to the table next to the chair he was sitting on. He locked eyes with her, even if she refused to look back at him. "Why?"

Clara shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself. "Insomnia. It's a thing that happens, I'm sure you must be familiar with the term," she smirked.

The Doctor stood up. "I don't have insomnia, Clara, I just don't sleep," he walked towards her. "How long have you been up?"

Her shoulders went up and down. "I don't know, an hour or so," she confessed, "I was walking around the TARDIS to pass the time but she locked myself around your room"

He nodded. "She does that."

"Yeah."

The Doctor didn't move his eyes from her. After so many hundreds of years dealing with humans, he could tell when something was odd. "Clara, if insomnia is your main issue, then why can't you look at me in the eyes?"

A sad smile appeared in the corner of her lips. _He knew her so well._ "I just… I haven't been able to sleep well, that's all."

He grabbed his sonic screwdriver out of his coat and scanned her. "You're sleep deprived," he explained, still unable to get her to look at him. "Clara, have you been having nightmares again?"

She nodded shyly. "They keep getting worse and worse"

The Doctor took her by the hand and pulled her to his very large bed. She didn't protest. "Do you want to talk about them? I mean, I am no therapist but I still have a doctor's degree."

She laughed slightly, before laying her head on his shoulder. "I just want to sleep peacefully for once, Doctor."

Surprisingly, he didn't pull away from her. He wrapped one of his arms around her torso, while the other still held her hand tenderly. "How long have you been having these nightmares?"

She took a long breath, and then she whispered: "Forever. Since Trenzalore"

The Doctor hugged her even tighter. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought they were gone."

"They were… for a while," Clara tugged her face deeper into his chest.

"Come on, now," the Doctor moved so he could lead her to lie down on his bed. She was reluctant at first, but she let him take care of him anyway. His bed felt completely soft and warm beneath her, and she felt the exhaustion take over her body.

The Doctor covered her with a blanket, before lying next to her. He welcomed her in his arms, gently running his fingers through her brown locks of hair. "You just rest, Clara."

She tugged herself in the other's arms, the smell of him filling up her nose. She tried to close her eyes, but she couldn't sustain them that for much time. "I c-can't," she tried to get up. "I'm sorry, I can't do this."

But he held her back. "You don't need to be scared," his accent was soft, almost unnoticeable. "I'm here, you're safe now. No one can get to you anymore."

She whinnied against his collar bones, her eyelashes touching the bare skin of his neck. "You can't protect me from my own mind, Doctor. It doesn't work that way."

His hands rubbed her back in circle motions, his nose burying itself on the top of her head. "But if I see you having a nightmare, I'll wake you up before it gets to you."

Clara smiled with the corner of her lips. "But then, when will you sleep?"

"Well," he took a long breath. "I'll just take cat naps every now and then. You know, just the same ole' usual."

She grinned, thrilled with the possibility that she would finally get the sleep her body longed for. "You promise? Promise that you will stay here with me."

"I promise."

"But just for tonight," Clara interfered. "I'll be okay after that."

The Doctor laughed at her stubbornness. "Yes, Clara."

For the rest of that night, she didn't have any more bad dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you all so much for the feedback, both here and on twitter :)**

Clara was having another sleepless night within the TARDIS.

Her nightmares had disturbed her after barely two hours of sleep, not that she felt any less tired than before she went to bed. Her body was starting to adjust itself for 20 hours' days, and sometimes she missed her life pre-doctor, when her life was stable.

But she wouldn't trade her travels for anything, even if she never got a proper night of sleep again. Traveling with the Doctor made her feel alive, some sort of sensation no human luxury would allow her. Whenever she stepped off the time machine into some new civilization, she wouldn't feel tired anymore.

Clara sat in the TARDIS kitchen, sipping herself some tea. Her mind was distracted, going miles per hour, filled up with memories of love and hope and sorrow, many she doubted were her own. The hot cup warmed her hands. She had a blanket wrapped around her torso, for some reason, the machine was cooler than usual that dawn.

She jumped in scare when she felt something touch her shoulder. She looked back, surprised to find the Doctor behind her. "What are you doing here?" she wondered.

"The TARDIS told me you were awake," he told her, before moving to sit across her at the table. He stared at her, waiting for some kind of answer.

"She still can't like me, can she," Clara looked down at the black liquid inside her mug.

"I programmed her to tell me when you were awake, so don't go blaming her for something she has no control over," he grinned to himself.

Clara moved her eyes to glare at his, but he didn't see the smirk he was expecting. "Why would you do that?"

"Well…" his face turned red, feeling ashamed and guilty of his actions. "Because I care for you. Because I know you aren't yourself, I know you're hurting from your nightmares."

Her eyes turned away again, and she whispered, "Because you have a duty of care, don't you."

"Yes," his answer was quick to come. "I know I'm the one who lacks at communication skills, but it seems you have become the one who doesn't talk anymore. I'm not talking about your dreams, Clara, I'm saying you don't even chat anymore."

"Yes, I do," she tried to argue, but she knew he was right.

"You don't, Clara," the Doctor reached out to grab her hand. "You sit by the console in a complete silence, but not a wise silence. A silence that is a cry for help. You need help."

Her eyes became watery at his words. "Who will help me, Doctor? Let's be real, we don't live a normal life. I jumped into your time stream. I'm scattered in million pieces throughout all of time and space, and not many of those lives were good. I can't remember them, but somewhere in my mind, I know there are memories of them. And I feel, Doctor, sometimes I feel so much that it hurts to even breathe. So, if I tell this to somebody, _to anyone,_ who would be _insane_ enough to believe me?"

"I would," he told her, squeezing her hand even more tightly. He wasn't making her uncomfortable with the touch, he knew, because she was squeezing it back, and he was glad that the simple hold of hands was helping her to talk about her messy feels.

Clara's cheeks blushed remarkably. "I don't want to be a burden. You already worry too much, Doctor."

He pulled his chair closer to her, still not letting go of her hand. "You not talking to me doesn't make me worry any less, Clara. It's quite the opposite, actually."

Clara, with her free hand, took the mug of tea up her lips before taking a slow sip. She knew the Doctor was waiting for some answer, or any sign of acknowledgment she was still listening to him. She took her time, though. "I just feel… I feel like my head is going to explode"

"Allow me?" he approached her, but waited for some kind of agreement begore doing anything. She nodded her head, barely noticeable. He put two sets of his fingers on each side of her temple. "I don't want you to fight this."

Her eyes stared blankly into him. She knew what he was doing, but she waited for an explanation anyway. "I'm going to induce you in a state of sleep, replace your nightmares with some nice dream, no spoilers about what it will be about."

She closed her eyes, for once in her life ready to accept help and eventually succumb herself to sleep. She could tell he was reluctant about it. "Just do it, Doctor."

The Doctor agreed, before finally starting the mental link. It was a matter of seconds until her body lost control over itself, and he had to catch her so she wouldn't fall to the floor. "Sleep tight, Clara"

He picked her up in his arms, her head falling backwards, thus he lifted her unusually big head so she could use his chest as a pillow. He was relieved to look at her face and after such a long time, finally seeing her rest.

The Doctor carried her into her room, laying her in the big cozy bed the TARDIS had provided her once she first started to travel with him. He made sure her pillows were comfortable enough for her head, straightening the blanket that once was wrapped around her torso, so it would cover her from toes to neck. For several moments, he stood still, just watching her sleep, too frightened she would have a nightmare in case he turned his back on her.

He sat down in a big chair in a corner across her bed, still with a perfect view of her, ready to jump in if anything happened. The Doctor wouldn't leave her alone, not anymore. He was ready for whatever happened.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

 _She was in a field, a bright green field, surrounded by spacey creatures that ran happily among the gold flowers displayed everywhere. The valley was enlightened by two suns in the purple sky, but the weather wasn't too warm._

 _She couldn't focus on any on their faces, they were all blurry. Perhaps they had no face at all, like the Great Intelligence people. No, they seemed too pure and innocent to be a part of the hoax that aimed to destroy the Doctor, she thought to herself._

 _But there was one face among them all that stroke out to her. One that she would never miss, even in a crowd full of people. She saw his face, the Doctor's face, and she knew she had to get to him._

 _Her walk was slow at first. The Doctor wasn't in any kind of danger, for once she didn't have to save him. She was just glad to see his face – one of them, at least – even if he would never see hers._

 _The sky suddenly became black._

 _A soft rain began to fall on top of her head. The faceless people all turned to the same direction,_ his _direction, as if they had an evil plan to take him down. They most likely did._

 _Her body froze down. She couldn't move, her legs refused to take any step at all. She could hear a voice calling for her, but it was so distant she feared her mind was playing tricks on her. Her heart was beating so vividly against her chest she assumed it was only a matter of time until it jumped out of her._

 _Her eyes were glued to the Doctor a few feet away from her. She could see he was struggling to defend himself, mainly because that was the moment she was supposed to jump in and sacrifice herself, saving him. Her mind was yelling at her to do so, but she was out of phase, out of synch with the controls of her own body._

"Clara! Clara!"

 _She was fading away. She tried to come back to the Doctor, she tried to reach him, but she was being pulled out. Her breathing patterns had gotten unstable, her heart pounded a million times per second, and the despair was taking over him. She tried to scream, to get his attention, but she couldn't get the words out of her lips._

 _The last thing her eyes saw was a glimpse of the Doctor falling to the floor, dead._

"Clara, wake up!"

Clara opened her eyes. She jumped on the bed right before getting rid of all the extra clothing that covered her. She felt so hot, her face was covered in sweat, like she was literally melting away. She clung onto the bed sheets so strongly, like her life depended on it.

"It's okay, Clara. It was only a dream," the Doctor tried to calm her down, but never once he touched her. She was too on edgy to accept any physical contact without giving herself a big scare.

She couldn't catch her breath. She couldn't get her body to stop shaking, either. A migraine was starting to kick in, but her mind was going so fast she didn't even have the chance to notice it. All she wanted was to feel the oxygen fulfilling her lungs.

"I c-can't… I ca-can't…" she tried to gasp, but she couldn't get herself to calm down enough to form a whole sentence. Her eyes were wild and bright from the tears reflected on them, rather than holding the sparkle they used to.

Gently and carefully, he put his hands on her upper arms, so he could look at her in the eyes. "Breathe with me, Clara."

She used him as a guide, trying to mimic his breathing in and out. Still, it took her several minutes to be able to stabilize herself a little, but the Doctor could still feel her trembling underneath his touch. "I'm okay," she tried to say, but her lies could be heard right past her words.

"I know you are," he grinned to himself, just going with her, even if they were both lying to themselves. "But it's alright if you're not," he tried to make her better in the only way he knew how, through scrambled words.

Clara leaned towards him, in a shy request for physical comfort. She didn't have to wait long, the Doctor wrapping her in his loving arms almost instantaneity. She curled herself like a child in his embrace, hiding her face against the smooth material of his coat.

The Doctor ran one of his hand up and down her sweaty skin, not that he seemed to mind, while the other one held her tenderly. His face was buried in her hair, the smell of lavender of her shampoo going up his nose. In that wordless moment, he promised himself he wouldn't ever let her hurt again, even if there were so much holding his promise and her healthcare apart.

"Doctor," she called for him softly, in a whisper that barely made past her lips. She waited a brief moment, just to make sure he was listening. "Can you take me somewhere pretty?" she asked, still unable to initiate eye contact.

"Yes, lucky for you, I can," he told her, his voice muffed by her hair, but she heard him anyway. "I can take you to all the pretty places in the universe."

He felt her smiling against him, the first smile in a very long time. She leaned back, finally glaring at him, and her eyes pleaded him to take her immediately. They were yearning for any kind of beauty, because her mind couldn't take the darkness for much longer.

The Doctor got up, offering her his hand. "Let's show you something impossible to the eyes of anybody but yours, Clara Oswald."

Clara's smile opened wild, and she took his hand. Getting up, she wrapped herself around one of his arms, regardless if he were against the hugging. She didn't care, and apparently, neither did he, because he embraced her without a fight, which didn't happen very often.

Soon enough, they reached the console room. She didn't let go of him, so he moved to press the bottoms with her still clung onto him like an extra limp. He let her pull the lever down.

For once, the TARDIS took off as gently as she could.

The Doctor took her by the arm, leading her to the spaceship door. He didn't utter a word until it was opened. "You said you wanted to see something _pretty,_ but here's something _amazing"_

Clara held even tighter onto him, stepping in her tiptoes so she could improve her vision sight of the outer space. "What is this?"

"A star about to be born," he smiled at her, before silently inviting her to sit down, their legs then both hanging lose in the void that surrounded the ship.

Clara laid her head in his shoulder, as the star began to show signs of life, a faint smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. "It's gorgeous, Doctor."

He wrapped his fingers around hers. "There's still beauty in this universe. If you look hard enough, you will most likely find it."

She shook her head. "That's not true, Doctor, there's beauty in simple things. Children running free under the blue bright sky, the hold of hands between two friends, sitting here in complete silence with you… That's beauty, Doctor."

The Doctor frowned his brows. "I expected this to be beautiful; you don't get to see the birth of a star on a-"

She interrupted him, "I'm not talking about that. The birth of a star would be _ordinary_ if you didn't have anyone to share it with. That's why you take companions with you, isn't it? To make extraordinary out of the ordinary."

"Guess so," he mumbled, not very fond of the idea of her being right over him. "I know why I've taken you, though."

"To give you hell? To keep you in line?" she suggested, half a smirk across her lips.

"Well, apart from that," he replied ironically. "No, _Clara,_ I chose you from all people because I knew you would make it worth. I looked at you and I saw good, I saw kindness, I saw an infinite potential that would do wonders to the universe. Thus, I knew the stars were begging to have you."

Her cheeks blushed tremendously as she lowered her head down, too shy to maintain any kind of physical touch. She changed the subject almost immediately, "Do… Do you want to know what I've been dreaming about?"

The Doctor squeezed her hand in encouragement. "If you're comfortable enough with telling me, then I'll be glad to listen."

Clara took a long breath, before finally raising her head at the same level as his, although her eyes remained staring at their held hands. "I'm always running. _My echoes_ are always running; I can't really tell the difference. But we're always running towards you."

She paused, afraid her dreams were too much for her to handle being spoken out loud. In fact, _they were,_ because she felt her lungs burn with the oxygen they were given as her breathing became faster and unstable. As the Doctor didn't want to see her going through another panic attack, he tugged her in his arms, patting his fingers against the fabric of her tank top. "It's okay, take your time, Clara."

Clara pressed her ear against his chest, taking comfort from the sound of his heartbeats before carrying on, "I'm always running to you, but I never get to you in time. I keep watching you die, over and over again," her final words never making it past the lips that formed them.

"Oh, my Clara," he pulled her even closer to him than she already was. "I'm not dead, I'm right here. You're not getting rid of me any time soon, I promise you that."

She whiffed. "You can't promise me that, not when there could a fleet of Daleks ready to kill you right in the corner."

He laughed to himself. "You don't need to be afraid of the Daleks, they're too scared to kill me, anyway."

Clara shrugged in his arms, the scent of his body going up her nose. "That didn't make me feel any better."

The Doctor rubbed his thumb against her soft hand. "My point is, I'm a Time Lord, I cheat death for a living. If I didn't, I wouldn't even have this one. Well, actually you were the one who cheated it for me, but what matters is that we're both here right now."

Clara smiled. "You look cute when you ramble."

It was his turn to blush. "Shut up," he demanded, his Scottish accent getting stronger than before.

She laughed, before turning her eyes back to the greatness in front of her. "Do you ever wish you could sit here forever? Doing nothing but to watch the universe expanding?"

"No," his eyes were focused in the petite human form next to him rather than the new star. "We must leave the great things for occasionally only, otherwise they will become normal, o _rdinary_."

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Then, they both fell into a deep silence.


	3. Chapter 3

_He was dying._

 _She felt the air being tangled from her lungs._

 _A thick rope around her neck._

 _He kept dying._

 _His time wasn't up yet._

 _But he kept dying, anyway._

 _She could only watch him slowly fade away._

 _Her feet glued to the ground._

 _Her fists fit together, both in rage and despair._

 _She was dying along him._

 _A sharp pain across her abdomen._

 _She gasped for air._

 _Her vision was faint._

 _He took one last breath._

 _She saw him die._

 _Her lungs burned._

 _She was dying._

 _Going. Going._

 _Gone._

Clara rushed to the bathroom, throwing herself over the toilet. It was a matter of seconds until all the content in her stomach was puked out of her mouth. Apart from the terrible nausea, she felt her insides crawling inside of her.

She leaned her forehead against the seat, too indisposed to move an inch, neither did she know if her body would make her sick again. Instead, she focused on her breathing pattern, trying to stabilize it along with her heart beat, but the later one refused to settle down. She felt like she was on the edge of exploding.

She felt another sudden wave of vomit coming up her throat, and two seconds later, she was throwing up again, although she couldn't tell where the sickness was coming from, since her last meal had been ages ago. Next thing she knew, a pair of hands was pulling her hair up, before patting her back, in some sort of attempt of comfort.

Once she was done, she painfully moved her head so she could stare back at his loving gaze. "How long have you been there watching this?" her voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

"Since the moment you woke up and ran out to the bathroom," he didn't bother himself with lies to make her ego feel better, handing her a towel to clean up herself.

She took it up and cleaned up the corners of her lips, her back then anchored against the hard wall. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Do I need a reason?" he pondered, never once removing his eyes off her.

She shrugged her shoulders up and down. "People tend to."

He remained perfectly still. "Well, I'm not people."

Her eyes stared at him blankly. "Still, it's creepy if you don't have a reason," she argued.

The Doctor seemed to think for a while. "I find you cute when you sleep. Is that a reason good enough?"

Clara made a face, her northern accent speaking for her, "Don't say that, that just makes you even creepier."

He didn't quite get her point, though. "Well, I worry about you, and I don't want to see you fighting your inner demons all by yourself when I'm right _here,_ Clara."

Her cheeks blushed, but she didn't break the eye contact. "Ok, that isn't creepy. You should always go with that alternative."

The Doctor nodded, before slowly crawling towards her. "Clara, let me help you."

Shamelessly, she moved her body so her head rested atop of his skinny legs, but he didn't seem to mind. Instead, he rubbed his thumb across her temples, staring down at her big brown us, until she added, "Can we just lay here for a while? I don't want to move, Doctor."

"We can," he smiled at her with his lips closed, even if he didn't know if it were safe to smile or not, since he always used her smile for guidance. Glady, she didn't seem to be bothered by it. "Are you still feeling nauseous?"

She closed her eyes. "A little, yeah," she didn't lie, too tired to waste what was left of her energies in untruthful words. "I'll be okay soon enough, Doctor."

The Doctor grinned. "I know, Clara. You always are fine," he argued. From all the time he had known her for, there had been just a few occasions in which she had told him she really wasn't _fine_. "But sometimes, being fine means the complete opposite. Sometimes being fine means knowing you're broken, knowing you're not the same person you were before, but knowing you're going to survive anyway."

"Doctor, I'm-"

He pressed his finger on her lips, not letting her lie to herself even more. Clara stared blankly at this ocean eyes, her lips half opened, wetting his fingers. Her head was starting to hurt from laying right above his stick bony legs, but she didn't make no effort to move. "It's okay not to be okay, Clara."

She raised her hands to her mouth, wrapping the palm of both her hands around his finger, just so she could get her mouth back. "There's quite a difference between living and surviving, Doctor."

He nodded, while playing with her hair with the hand that wasn't trapped by her hold. "Don't you feel alive, Clara?"

For the first time, she broke the eye contact. "Yes – when we're traveling. I feel as special and thrilled as few humans have had the chance to be. But then, we're back in the TARDIS. I'm back at home, and I feel like I'm barely alive, like I can't breathe. Every time I close my eyes, I feel like I'm signing up for my death."

He wiped away the single tear that rolled from the corner of her left eye. "Oh, my Clara," he whispered her name with melody. "You're not dead. You're not dying, either. You're safe, nothing or no one can get to you."

Clara innocently carried on playing with his finger still trapped in her grip. "They keep getting worse and worse. I did, after all, wake up feeling sick tonight."

The Doctor cupped her face with the palm of his free hand. "I wish I could take your nightmares away from you. I miss seeing a smile on your face, I miss the sound of your laugh, I miss your perky comments."

Finally, she lifted herself on her elbows, raising her head from his legs, their eyes almost at the same height – she was still remarkably smaller than him, even when seated. For the first time, she could see how much her pain was causing him pain. "I'm still here, Doctor. I haven't gone anywhere, neither am I going to. You have my word."

"You're here but you're not, Clara," he confessed, kindly involving his fingers around her hair locks. "You haven't really been since the nightmares have got to the point of keeping you up all night."

Clara rested her forehead against his chest, too scared to look at him in the eye. "I'm just so afraid, Doctor."

He planted his lips on the top of her head for a brief second. "Why are you afraid?"

He could feel her warm breath against his smooth coat. "Because… Because I'm broken. You're not obligated to care for the broken ones, so you could easily drop me off back on Earth and never look back. And I don't think I could ever go back to a normal life after all I've seem, all I've _lived_."

"Clara," he cried against her hair. "I would never drop you off like that. Not after all you've done for me, not when I was the one who brought this upon you."

"You didn't," she was quick to tell him, approaching her body to his in a silent plead for physical touch. "I did _everything_ for you, Doctor, and I would gladly do it all over again if it meant saving your life."

Awkwardly, he pulled her into his lap, opening his arms for her to tug herself in. "You've already done enough, Clara. You've sacrificed yourself so many times for me, I won't ever be able to thank you enough."

Clara closed her eyelids, her face laid sideways against his torso. "Just…" her words were stuck back in their throat. "Just promise you won't leave. Just for now, anyway. That's all I could ever ask in return."

The Doctor smiled at the innocence of her request, and she was sure she could feel his smile against her skin. "I'm not leaving you, Clara Oswald. Never. You're stuck with me until the end of times."

 _She wouldn't survive until the end of time,_ she thought to herself, but didn't speak it out loud, too scared he would pull off the warmth embrace she was in so need of. She didn't know if she would be able to still hold it together if he let go of her.

Carefully not to alarm her, he put one of his arms under her knees whilst the other held her tightly under her armpits, before he gently lifted her from the floor. She was surprised with his actions, nonetheless. "Doctor? What are you doing? I can _walk,_ you know," she protested, but made no effort to leave his arms.

"I know you can," he replied sharply, already expecting her to smack him until he either regenerated or put her down. Surprisingly, she didn't. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing all her body weight onto him.

He carried her to his bedroom, in which the TARDIS was kind enough to display not so far away. The Doctor tried to lay her down in his bed, but she refused to let go of him. "Stay with me," her plead was sincere, without any hesitation.

Her eyes became wild at her. "Would you at least let me set out the sheets and blankets before?" he asked roughly, and yet kindly.

Clara merely nodded, bringing her arms back to her. She watched as he pulled the blanket out of the bed, regardless if she didn't move an inch from where she had been laid, before wrapping her with it. Next thing she knew, he was lying next to her, her back against his chest, their bodies so close to each other's it wouldn't be long until they became one only.

For the first time in a very long time, she fell her body relaxed. The Doctor embraced her in his arms, and Clara felt save, she felt shielded from both the outside world and her own mind. "You rest now, Clara."

She dreadfully closed her eyes. "Will you lie with me until I wake up?"

"Yes, I will," came the answer.

She sniffed, "Won't you get bored?"

"I'm never bored when I can look at you."

Her cheeks blushed as red as wine. She was the one with the constant flirting, not him. "Shut up."

The Doctor laughed to himself, before hugging her even tighter. He felt her give herself onto his arms, and soon enough, she was asleep. And he made sure not to let go of her until she woke up.

From that night on, the Doctor would tug Clara his embrace in his room, until the break of dawn. She didn't have nightmares no more.

 **A/N: Alrighty, only one chapter to go now. Any feedback is appreciated :)**


	4. Epilogue

Clara woke up out of a breath.

She looked around herself, her brain taking a few moments to synch her to where she was. _It had felt so real,_ she could have sworn she had seen him, she had smelled him, she had _felt_ him, and her heart ached at the reality she was trapped in.

It had been over six months since she had last seen him, _her Doctor._ Since that last day at the dinner, in which they had _talked_ as if there were complete strangers. And she missed him more than anything, more than her family, more than her students, more than everything she had been forced to leave behind the moment _she died_ at the tap street.

Part of her wondered if he could still remember. Perhaps that moment at the dinner had all been a façade, perhaps he was pretending he didn't know her just like she had pretended she didn't know _him._ They had lied before to each other to assure the other's happiness, after all. The rest of her, though, knew that was only her mind trying to protect her from the cruel reality she was trapped in, because she didn't know if she would be able to hang in there if he weren't _hurting as much as she was._

Clara put two of her fingers in her pulse. There was still no heartbeat, there would be no heartbeat until the moment she decided she was ready to go back to Gallifrey, until the day the memory of him would hurt so much she would realize she was ready to _face the raven_ again _._ Her heart was literally dead without him.

She wrapped herself around an old t-shirt of his. That was all she had left of him, apart from the memories of love and loss, an old t-shirt she had taken away from him long before her death on Earth. She had gotten it after a very wet adventure, in which all her clothes had been soaking wet and she had no other choice but to borrow some from him. After that, she had just kept it, regardless if the Doctor kept saying the shirt was long enough to suit her as a dress.

And she grew a habit of hugging it to sleep every night. Even if the flux of her tears had long ago washed away his sent. It was comforting nonetheless, it _almost_ felt like he was right there next to her, singing her to sleep on a daily basis.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, _even if in her dreams, the Doctor was still there with her,_ she got out of bed. She folded his t-shirt and put it in a little drawer next to the bed, as she did every day, before changing into some more formal clothes, so she could meet Ashildr back in the console room.

The TARDIS hummed in acknowledgment of her being awake. Clara smiled slightly, at least that machine liked her better than the Doctor's one, she thought to herself.

Feeling as lonely as ever, she walked out of her room. Because she didn't have to be alone to feel lonely, and the loneliness had been a new dear friend of hers, ever since the day she had walked out on him in that restaurant over the hill.

 **A/N: I'm terribly sorry about this plot twist, it was just something that felt right for me. Thank you all who have taken your time to read and review this.**


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